Apps Revisited

There's an interesting dynamic going on now in the world of Apps, and it's an important metric for musicians. The key takeaway is that it's more important to have a App your fans want to use than to have an App.

This applies to both Native Apps and Web Apps, although it's more critical in the Native App world because of the rating systems that are part of the App Stores. What's the point of having an App if it's only going to get a one star rating, or worse?

When Apps first really started to take off (remember, the iTunes App Store is only 5 years old!) there was tremendous pressure to build an App and get it on the App stores. It was like - if you didn't have an App, who were you? Now, those Apps are looking a little tired, a little all-the-same. And, the usage statistics are sobering - the 50 billionth App was downloaded this past May, however one in four Apps are downloaded and used once and then never used again, and 84 percent of iPhone owners use less than 20 Apps.

The effect of this is a new dynamic focused on making Apps useful and easy. Many organizations are replacing their initial Apps with new, focused designs and capabilities. And to a great extent, this dynamic plays out better for companies developing custom, vs prepackaged content based Apps. Of course, App development is still expensive, and a thorough strategy includes iPhone, Android and Mobile Web Apps. Whether a custom App for an Enterprise client or a platform App designed to meet the needs of an industry segment, apps must be beautiful, easy to use, and most importantly - useful.

The Artist Portal Message Board

The Artist Portal Message Board went live this week! 

We always wanted to create a dialog among the Artist community where you could ask questions, share insights, and let other Artists know what was working and what was a waste of time as you marketed your music to fans using the mobile ecosystem. When we were designing the Artist Portal Dashboard, we included a Message Board in the design so that you could see and join the conversations when you logged in.

The Message Board is at the bottom of the Dashboard page, right underneath the chart we present that shows your fan growth. For starters, it's a simple board where you can post and respond to messages. Later, if it gets too large, we'll expand it to deal with specific topics, like you see with the large Message Boards on other sites.

Adva Mobile will be monitoring the Message Board also, so you can ask us anything. It should be a great place to ask us questions about mobile campaigns, mobile best practices, new features you're looking for, how something works, etc.

Anything at all. Just ask - us, or your fellow musicians on Adva Mobile.

Adva Mobile at Mass Innovation Nights

Here in the Boston Innovation Economy we regularly brush shoulders with innovative individuals, start-ups and groups who are looking to launch a new idea into the marketplace that could completely change the way we think and act.

Adva Mobile is one of those companies.

One event in the area that does a phenomenal job of gathering such innovators together is Mass Innovation Nights (MIN).

Launched in April 2009, the monthly event showcases ten companies, and the community turns out to visit vendor booths, promote the products via social media and sit in on pitch presentations. In the last two years alone, MIN has helped launch more than 475 products and connect many job seekers with hiring managers.

Adva Mobile was one of the companies presenting our technology at the 51st MIN at the Microsoft New England Research and Development Center (better known as the NERD Center). There's a brief interview with ME (Adva Mobile founder Jack Kelly - put a face to a name) you can watch at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KNIOLnyqQ0&feature=youtu.be&t=4m54s .

We're proud to be part of the Boston Innovation Community and helping Artists with cool, useful technology.

Stream Music Right From Your Phone

The new Adva Mobile platform we launched in March is getting rave reviews (THANKS!) and one feature especially is generating a lot of energy. It's the ability to stream music right inside a mobile web page. We think Adva mobile may be the only mobile marketing company offering this capability for musicians today.

Here's a screen shot from the mobile site of Adva Mobile Artist Illogistical Resource Department (I.R.D.). All these tracks are uploaded to the Content section on the portal and fans stream these songs by clicking on the Play button.

What's especially cool about streaming inside the mobile web app is that the fan doesn't leave your mobile site to play music. The way our old system worked, and the way most other mobile web sites work, is that playing music causes the phone to open the music player app on the phone (iTunes on the iPhone, for example) - so you're off the site.

Another terrific benefit to our new streaming feature is that fan's DON'T get to download this music - they can only stream it. So you can put a song up for sale and the fans can buy it and download it if they want to own it, or just stream it if they want a streaming service.

The analytics on all this is also great. We're capturing which fans, are streaming which music, and how many times, so you have terrific vision into which of your songs are getting the most play.

Use The Shoutout to Attract More Fans

The Adva Mobile platform provides Artists with a terrific tool for capturing fan data at their moment of inspiration - your show! It's the SMS SHORTCODE and KEYWORD we give you to let fans text you. This is So Much Better than collecting email addresses at the merch table because it's immediate, virtually error free, and fans are 99% likely to open a text from you - only about 20% will open your emails.

A refresher - the SHORTCODE is the number fans text to. For all of you, it's 88704. The KEYWORD is your personal text word - usually your band name (but can be anything available) It's the Message fans send to 88704. Most begin with GET. So, fans get to your site by texting getbandname to 88704.

But you have to tell them to do that.

How do you do that? Well, you can make Facebook Posts and Tweets, and that works. But by far the best way is at the show, from the stage - The Shoutout.

Mobile is so new, you have to teach your fans about it. You'll come up with your own style. During the show, you can tell your fans they can get a song for free by texting GETbandname to 88704. After a few shows, it will be completely natural, and part of your show routine, and you'll be building up your fan base.

There's a great Shoutout on this YouTube video here. Try a Shoutout at your next show and watch your fan base grow.

Adding Content to your Mobile Web Site

The new Adva Mobile marketing platform for Artists makes it easy to offer content for your fans to enjoy. This content includes pictures, music and videos and are always fan favorites and often the most visited pages. There are a number of different tools you can use to get content to your fans, including Exclusive Content, which offers something in exchange for an email address, and the Store, where you sell your content. But you can also let fans stream your music, download pictures, and watch your videos, and that's set up on the Content page.

It couldn't be easier. From the Portal Dashboard, you select Content from the menu, and that brings you to the content page. Each type of content has it's own creation page - Add Music, Add Video, and Add Photos. For Music and Photos, you're going to upload the content and give it a name. For video, you're going to enter the URL to your video - YouTube, Vimeo, etc.

On your mobile site, your Home Page has a Content link that brings fans to a page where they can choose Music, Videos and Photos. For now, our service supports an unlimited amount of content, and you can continue to change it out to give your fans a fresh new experience when they visit your mobile site. We also keep track of which content is most popular with your fans -helpful info as you target and market to them.

Mobile - Centric Marketing

Bands continually find their way to Adva Mobile for mobile websites and Apps, and discover something else – a marketing platform to acquire fans, engage them and sell to them. That’s marketing (at least the acquire and engage parts). Mobile marketing has become one of the most popular ways to promote your band to your fans. It works when fans opt in to receiving text messages from you and by you sending messages to your fans mobile phones. This can be a great way to find and keep fans buying since studies have shown that people pay far more attention to messages on their phone than they do to things like email. That being said, mobile marketing is just a small part of the total process of making sales. You have to integrate mobile into your total marketing campaign.

Just so you know, mobile, as our way of understanding, reaching and engaging with fans, is the life-giving sun around which we craft the orbit of our marketing campaigns. And the idea that mobile marketing for musicians is the most likely candidate to become the beating heart of your brand will soon be self-evident. 

That’s the message of big brands today. And it’s coming to small businesses, and Artists. 
Just like the big brands recognize:  The promise of persistent availability, the promise of personal treatment and instant outcomes, real-time targeted fan benefits. The at-your- fingertips quality of a whole new kind of always-on Artist – fan experience. 

I remain astonished that the music industry continues to fret over whether “mobile” is really about CRM more than it is acquisition, or “mobile” is simply an additive media channel, or how “mobile” is really about applications (sigh …). 

Artists that “get it” are transforming their brands themselves, as all around us a single, stunning fresh fact of life becomes clearer every day: mobile is changing everything.

If you are responsible for marketing your band, I propose you need to pay a new-found attention to something you may have been missing completely: the simple yet profoundly insightful behavior of people interacting with their mobile phones – and each other.  

Real marketing seeks to attach to the existing behavior of your fans by offering up and inserting perfectly placed instants of value, maybe even magic, into the mix of mobile behaviors currently in play with your fans. 

This article proposes it is time to not simply move mobile onto center-stage of our Artist to fan relationships. It is time to completely rethink the nature and effect of every inch of your brand within the context of mobile. 

The context of ubiquity and transparency. The context of near-frictionless distribution and reach of message and content. The context of empowered devices in the hands of people already transforming their lives in ways that could never have been foreseen. 

The context of stronger Artist to fan relationships, that lead to paying fans.